There are high hopes that the process of drawing up an international human rights instrument for the promotion and protection of peasant rights will soon be crowned with success: In September, the Human Rights Council decides whether the newly negotiated UN Declaration on the rights of peasants and other people working in rural areas will be sent to the United Nations’ General Assembly in New York for adoption. The Declaration not only reaffirms existing rights of peasants, but also incorporates new rights, such as the right to land, which is of particular importance to HEKS/EPER.

We therefore would like to invite different stakeholders to meet at the HEKS/EPER Land Forum 2018 to share and exchange their knowledge about the Declaration and to discuss what an adoption of this new human rights instrument would imply for the Swiss government and for advocacy and project work of Swiss iNGO – with the aim of drafting possible action points to put the Declaration into practice, on Swiss as well as on international level.